MORE CRACKS IN THE WALL

Republican lawmakers urge shift in U.S. Iraq plans
Sun Jun 12, 2005 03:40 PM ET
By Vicki Allen
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8765457


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican congressman called for a deadline to pull U.S. troops from Iraq, while some other members of President Bush's party urged on Sunday that his administration come to grips with a persistent insurgency and revamp Iraq policy.
Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina conservative, said on ABC's "This Week" that he would offer legislation next week setting a timetable for the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
"I voted for the resolution to commit the troops, and I feel that we've done about as much as we can do," said Jones, who had coined the phrase "freedom fries" to lash out at the French for opposing the Iraq invasion.
"The insurgency is alive and well. We underestimated the viability of the insurgency," Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said on CBS' Face the Nation. He said the administration has "been slow to adjust when it comes to troop strength and supporting our troops."
Graham said the Army is contending with a serious shortfall in recruiting "because this war is going sour in terms of word of mouth from parents and grandparents." He said "if we don't adjust, public opinion is going to keep slipping away."
Jones, a member of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said "primarily the neoconservatives" in the administration were to blame for flawed war planning.
"The reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there," he said.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who just returned from Iraq, joined several Democrats saying the administration must be more candid and acknowledge that it could take about two years to train Iraqi forces to replace U.S. soldiers and allow a significant pullout.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, said on CNN's Late Edition, that "many of us warned this administration before we ever put a boot on the ground" that it would face a long-term conflict. "We didn't have plans for it. And we are now where we are," he said.

UPDATE: You can see a video clip of Rep. Jones being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos at Crooks & Liars